Richard “Dicky” Deats Passes Away at 66

Academy Award winner and key grip Richard “Dicky” Deats passed away in his beloved Montana on July 14 at the age of 66.

Dicky was born and raised in Southern California. In 1964 he joined his father as a second generation Local 80 grip.

Dicky’s talent were widely known and respected within the industry. In 1982 he was awarded the Academy Award for Technical Achievement for the design and manufacture of the “Little Big Crane,” the first portable film crane.

The list of directors and cinematographers who worked with Dicky is like a who’s who of the film industry. Cinematographers Vilmos Zsigmond and Caleb Deschanel almost exclusively used Dicky as their key grip on some of their biggest films, including Black Dahlia, National Treasure, The Patriot, The Devils Advocate, Maverick, The River, Close Encounters of The Third Kind, Heaven’s Gate and almost 30 others.